Now that we’ve spent some (okay, quite a bit) of time gaming with the Turtle Beach Elite Atlas Aero, the full review is here – carry on reading to find out why Turtle Beach’s latest headset is so impressive.
Pricing and availability
You can pick up the Turtle Beach Elite Atlas Aero for £129.99/ $149.95 from the Turtle Beach website. While that’s not exactly as budget-friendly as most of Turtle Beach’s gaming offering, it is a great price for the quality of the headset and the audio experience on offer.
Design
Turtle Beach has a reputation for manufacturing comfortable gaming headsets, and that’s no different with the Elite Atlas Aero. It sports a thin, sleek metal external headband with a ‘floating’ cushioned inner headband to help alleviate pressure on top of your head during long periods of play, although you can’t adjust the tension like with the headband of the SteelSeries Arctis 7.
While the dual-layer headband is a nice touch, the earcups themselves are the star of the show when it comes to the Elite Atlas Aero. The ear cushions are chunky, but that’s no bad thing; the cushions are filled with cooling gel-infused memory foam that both moulds to the shape of your head and keeps you cool. It’s a refreshing sensation putting the headset on, feeling that cool cushion mould to your head before raining down hell on your online opponents. The thick memory foam ear cushions also provide a decent level of passive noise cancellation, especially with the volume pumped up. Glasses wearers are catered to, with the headset sporting Turtle Beach’s exclusive ProSpecs system – a system that features small indents in the side of the ear cushions to accommodate glasses, removing the uncomfortable build-up of pressure that glasses wearers get from some gaming headsets. It’s not just a claim either – as a glasses wearer, I found no issue wearing the Elite Atlas Aero over hours of play. Essentially, the earcups of the Elite Atlas Aero are phenomenal and it’s amongst the most comfortable headsets I’ve ever worn. Being a gaming headset, the Elite Atlas Aero has an adjustable microphone that, while not able to flip away when not in use, is removable. It’s down to personal preference and the frequency that you chat with others online, but we do generally prefer a mic that tucks into the headset when not in use – it’s easy to misplace a removable mic, after all.
The wireless nature of the headset means there isn’t a cable with in-line controls, but you’ll find everything you’ll need on the headset itself. Along with basic volume and microphone controls, you’ll find a chat/game balance to shut your teammates up when things get tense, and you’ll also find a programmable button to toggle one of a variety of options via the Turtle Beach Control Studio, which we go into more detail about next.
Features and audio
The Turtle Beach Elite Atlas Aero is one of two headsets from the company that can take advantage of the new Turtle Beach Control Studio software for PC. The suite provides a multitude of audio options ranging from basic EQ tweaking to adjusting the microphone’s overall volume to more advanced options including a dynamic chat boost that intelligently cranks up chat audio when your buddies are talking along with access to one of Turtle Beach’s most desired features; Superhuman Hearing. Superhuman Hearing tweaks the audio output to emphasise sounds like approaching footsteps, the click of a reloading weapon and nearby gunfire, giving owners an edge in online gameplay. Now that you’ve got software to tweak the effect, you can now choose between three options; Legacy – the option available on most recent Turtle Beach headsets – along with two new options, Footsteps Boost and Gunshots Boost. Each does what it says on the tin, and it really does make a difference when playing online shooters.
While Superhuman Hearing is a cool feature, it’s not the only premium feature on offer. The Elite Atlas Aero also offers Waves Nx audio technology to produce a three-dimensional soundscape that really immerses you in the game you’re playing. Whether it’s a chopper hovering overhead, footsteps approaching from the rear or an explosion far off in the distance, Waves Nx does a great job of accurately replicating what you’d expect to hear in real life. It’s a next-level experience, and while it might not be as helpful as Superhuman Hearing in competitive play, it certainly provides a more immersive experience when playing atmospheric story-driven games. That audio experience is driven by 50mm Nanoclear speakers that produce crisp, clear audio with booming bass perfect for a range of games, whether you’re stuck in the trenches in WW2 or exploring an unknown planet looking for alien life. In terms of battery life, you’ll get around 30 hours before it’ll need a top-up. That’s not bad, and when you consider it only takes around 90 minutes to go from flat to full, there’s essentially no downside to the wireless connectivity – there’s even a place to store the USB dongle within the headset itself. If you do find you’ve run out of power at a crucial time in your game, you can use the included 3.5mm cable or microUSB cable to reconnect and continue playing. That 3.5mm cable also makes the Elite Atlas Aero compatible with pretty much every console, from the PS4 to the Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, along with any other device with a 3.5mm headphone jack. What’s better than a platform-agnostic gaming headset? That’s right, nothing.
Verdict
We think Turtle Beach is on to a winner with the Elite Atlas Aero; it offers premium build quality and a high-end audio experience tailored to gamers without a bank-breaking price-tag. The headset is very comfortable to wear, thanks mainly to Turtle Beach’s unique cold-touch memory foam ear cushions, and enhancements to the audio playback via the new Control Studio software for PC means gamers can tailor the audio experience on a per-game basis. If you’re looking for a great all-round wireless gaming headset, you can’t really go wrong with the Turtle Beach Elite Atlas Aero. Lewis Painter is a Senior Staff Writer at Tech Advisor. Our resident Apple expert, Lewis covers everything from iPhone to AirPods, plus a range of smartphones, tablets, laptops and gaming hardware. You’ll also find him on the Tech Advisor YouTube channel.
